Pizza Tower

Pizza Tower is the closest thing to Wario Land 4 made in the last twenty years. A grimy, hand-drawn momentum platformer where the level structure is “run in, do everything, run out before the timer kills you.” If you played Wario Land 4 on a Game Boy Advance and wished someone would make it again, Tour de Pizza did, and put it on Switch.

Game overview

You play Peppino Spaghetti, a sweating, screaming Italian pizza chef who has to climb a giant tower to save the pizzeria. The structure is identical to Wario Land 4: enter a level, find the Pillar John, hit it to reverse time, and sprint back to the exit before the lava catches you. Between those two acts you collect toppings, beat up enemies, and chain combos to fill a “Tower of Pizza Lap” score multiplier. Hitting an S-rank on a level requires running it cleanly enough to keep the combo alive from start to finish. The genre name people have settled on is momentum platformer: levels are short, the score-attack ceiling is enormous, and the difference between an A-rank and an S-rank is the difference between competent and committed.

The Noise Update of March 2024 added Noise (the rival from the story) as a fully playable character with his own moveset across every level. Free, included with the base game, no DLC payment required.

Where you can play it

Pizza Tower launched on Steam (Windows) on 26 January 2023. There is no GOG, Epic, MS Store, or native macOS version. The Switch version launched digitally on 27 August 2024 via Nintendo’s Indie World presentation, with a Fangamer physical edition (standard plus a collector’s edition with a Peppino egg-timer) following on 10 October 2025. No PlayStation, no Xbox, no mobile.

On Steam Deck, Pizza Tower is Steam Deck Verified and runs at a locked 60 fps with negligible battery draw, easily comfortable for four-plus hours on a single charge. On Switch the digital version runs cleanly in handheld mode and is the best version to own if you are not already on PC.

The mobile question: there is no official iOS or Android port. The sites that show up in searches for “Pizza Tower Mobile” or “pizzatower.io” are unofficial and not endorsed by Tour de Pizza. They are not a safe purchase.

Cross-saves and keeping your progress

The honest answer: no cross-save between Steam and Switch. Steam Cloud syncs PC to Steam Deck inside a single Steam account, which is the only sync path the game offers. If you start on Switch and want to continue on Steam Deck (or vice versa), you start fresh on the new platform.

For Pizza Tower this is less painful than the lack of cross-save sounds. The campaign is short (six to eight hours for a clean run-through of the main story) and the replay value lives in S-rank chasing, which is per-level, not per-save. Switching platforms means re-collecting story unlocks but does not erase your understanding of how the levels work, which is the actual progression.

The pairings that work:

• Steam (PC) + Steam Deck for one continuous save and the modding community on GameBanana.
• Switch only if you want everywhere-you-go handheld and do not need mods.

Modding is unofficial. There is no Steam Workshop support; the community runs out of GameBanana using a delta-patch tool. Mods can be made to run on Steam Deck (Proton plus the patcher) but it is fiddly, not plug-and-play.

Features that matter on the move

• Short, intense levels. Each level is three to seven minutes for a first clear and one to three minutes for an S-rank attempt. A short commute fits one level cleanly.
• Score-attack replay is the real long game. Once the credits roll, S-ranking every level is the next sixty hours. Perfect for repeated short sessions.
• Hand-drawn sprite art reads on a 7-inch screen. High contrast, big silhouettes, no fine-detail problem on handheld displays.
• Full controller throughout. No touch needed. 8BitDo Pro 2 works on Steam and Switch; an Xbox or DualSense controller is fine on PC.
• Suspend-resume is reliable. Switch sleep mode and Steam Deck suspend both work cleanly. No documented save corruption issues.

Recommended setup

For Steam library owners, the PC version on Steam Deck paired with a Steam Cloud-synced desktop is the cleanest path. For anyone else, the Switch version is the right buy: it is the same game, runs cleanly, and ships in a Fangamer physical edition if you want one for the shelf.

A wired or wireless controller helps on docked Steam Deck or TV-mode Switch. The 8BitDo Pro 2 is the best multi-device controller for an owner who plays on both, with Switch-native pairing and Bluetooth-to-Steam-Deck support out of the box.

See the controllers guide for the wider multi-device picks and the cross-saves cornerstone for how Steam Cloud and Switch saves actually behave when you swap devices.

Verdict

The best Wario Land 4 spiritual successor ever made, and now portable in two ways: Steam Deck or Switch. Pick the platform you already own. Twelve to fifteen pounds well spent on either storefront.